Field
This application relates to illumination fixtures and in particular to illuminating an item to facilitate providing background separated images.
Description of the Related Art
Images of products for advertising or other purposes are prevalent in print and on-line content. Advertisers prefer to use high quality images of products in advertisements to differentiate their products. Additionally a high quality product image can convey critical information about a product much more quickly than a text description can. Attributes of high quality images for advertising include excellent image details, clear product edges, the absence of a visible background, (thereby conveniently allowing use of the image in various contexts, such as print advertisements, web advertisement, or the like), and an absence of defects such as spots, reflections, or specular highlights. To achieve high quality product images, advertisers conventionally use photography studios that employ specialists who are experts in generating high quality images of products.
While some functions related to high quality photography may benefit from digital image processing, such as red-eye removal, achieving excellent image details with clear product edges and no visible background typically requires manual manipulation of the images, including clicking along segments of the edges of an object on a computer screen to define an outline of the object so that the object can be separated from its background. Additionally, providing high quality images for processing requires time intensive product placement, lighting, and photography with each change in product positioning often requiring adjustments to lighting. Once high quality product images are captured, specialists use manual graphic editing tools to separate the item from its background so that the item can be repurposed for various types of advertisements. As with most high quality detailed manual functions, the process is often time-consuming and costly, requiring a skilled and well trained specialist. Unfortunately, the cost of operating a photography studio of such specialists is passed on to the advertiser through high fees. To achieve improved throughput or increased capacity, additional specialists must be employed and their cost is also passed onto the advertiser. Since each image must be manipulated individually due to any change in lighting or viewing angle, creating a library of images that show multiple features or views of a product can be very expensive.
In embodiments, a photograph or digital image as described herein may be taken with lighting configured to deliver a high quality image of the object without consideration for the critical manual operation of separating the object from its background. In some cases, when taking a photograph, an outline of an object may be inadequate to ensure that the ability to separate the object from its background is of similarly high quality. Additionally, lighting in a photography studio may be optimized for lighting an object and may be inadequate to illuminate the object for the purpose of efficiently separating it from its background. As a result using a single image of an object illuminated for purposes of a high quality image can compromise a step in delivering an object image suitable for advertisers' purposes. Alternatively, the photograph or digital image may be taken in a way that compromises between obtaining a high quality image of the object and obtaining an image from which the background may be separated. In such a case, neither the quality of the image nor the quality of the separation of object from background is optimized.
Users of the Internet have come to expect on-line shopping to facilitate a superior understanding of a product before a purchase is made. High quality product images provide a high degree of information that is important to a consumer. While user interface interactive capability and dynamic displays are common aspects of today's personal computers used for on-line shopping, cost and schedule limitations of generating the necessary library of product images severely limits the extent to which on-line advertising can take advantage of these aspects. On-line consumers are often limited to a few views of the exterior of a product and do not get the opportunity to virtually interact with the product prior to purchase. As a result, consumers are either making purchases without sufficient information, or are using up a product supplier's support resources for answers to product specific questions they cannot get answered through their on-line shopping experience. However, on-line advertising, product display, and on-line shopping are especially attractive to both sellers and consumers due to the low cost of sale (and the resulting reduction in consumer price) and to consumers due to the access to information.
Therefore, there exists a need to quickly and cost-effectively generate a wide range of product images for each product to facilitate the envisioned on-line shopping experience and the resulting sales cost advantage. There also exists a need to deliver the images to on-line users in an interactive display format that facilitates easy access to the features, capabilities, and other aspects of a product necessary to make a well-informed buying decision.